Wheat Class

B”H

Dear Parents,

This week we explored the Parsha (Torah portion) of Noach in the Yellow Room. We learned that Hashem told Noach to build the taiva (ark) for 120 years so that the people would ask him what he’s doing and perhaps they would do Teshuva (return to doing good) and make good choices. But they still refused and so Hashem brought a mabul (flood) over the entire world. Hashem promised never to bring another mabul like that again and reminds us of that with a sign: the “keshes”, Hebrew for ‘rainbow’.

Song: https://www.chabad.org/519239

The people watched Noach while he hammered away
He worked on the teiva night and day
Hashem told him to do it, so people would ask
"What are you building, It’s a hard task."

Noach explained that teshuvah you must do
There are many not good things around us, it’s true
Hashem wants to destroy the world in which we live
Only through teshuvah, will Hashem forgive

The people didn’t listen, they did not understand
Then down came the rain throughout the land
Forty days and nights the flood came down
But Noach and his family did not drown

Parsha + Science

The Yellow Room learned about CONDENSATION, EVAPORATION and PRECIPITATION in connection with the Parsha which discussed the rain that fell and fell. And fell. And fell … for 40 days in the mabul (flood) in Noach’s time. The Yellow Room Scientists have filled their cups with water till the blue line and hypothesized how many days it would take for the water to EVAPORATE to get to the bottom red line as the water turns to vapor.

Song: Precipitation/Water cycle

TTTO She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain

Water travels in a cycle yes it does 2x
It goes up as evaporation
Forms clouds as condensation
Comes down as precipitation, yes it does

Resist Art

The Yellow Room Artists used Resist Art to explore how the watercolor resists the crayon designs as it rolls down the paper. They created falling ‘rain’ symbolizing the rain that fell in this week’s Parsha.

The Yellow Room discussed making choices. We all have choices as to how we talk and act. They know that the people in the time when Noach lived, a very long time ago, refused to make good choices. No matter how many chances Hashem gave them they still only made hurtful choices. They saw how Noach made good choices but didn’t want to follow his example. They continued to hurt each other, take things without permission, and be unkind.

I don’t copy what I see

Unless I know it’s good for me.

The Yellow Room Friends try to make good choices. Hashem is so proud of them.

Math

The Yellow Room Math Whizzes reinforced their one to one correspondence, counting the raindrops (blue paper raindrops) to match the number card. The cards were randomly labeled from 3 – 20.

Kriyah

Utilizing the Montessoi Alef Beis letters the Yellow Room Readers spelled the letters of this week’s Hebrew words and learned what they mean:

Cheshvan (the new Jewish month on our calendar) - חשון

- (keshes) - rainbowקשת

- (mabul) - floodמבול

- (teiva) - arkתיבה

Shabbat Shalom!
Morah Perline

Yellow Room Explorations and Learning

Noach and Math

The story of Noach has brought so much inspiration, exploration, and learning to the Yellow Room children. The children, as they learned about Noach and the Teva (vessel), were exploring numbers in relation to the levels of the Teva. They considered the size needed to house the People (Noach’s Family), the animals, and the trash that would accumulate over the year. The Teva has to be tall enough for the three parts when added together, challenging the children consider sums. They explored spatial relationships of the length, width and height of the Teva to accommodate all of the people, animals and trash. They also worked with comparing length, width and height and the understanding that the Teva would be longer than tall, or wide.

Comparing height.

Comparing length

The children compared Naveed’s body along the length of the Teva and the height of the Teva see how they compared.

The Teva, Literacy, Writing, & More!

While discussing the Teva the children worked phonetically to spell Teva. While spelling Teva, the children learned that a long vowel sound is made by saying the vowel’s name. Some children phonetically spelled People, Animals, and Trash.

The children first made a two dimensional plan for the Teva and what they thought it should look like. Next they learned about blueprints and drew their own blueprints of how they think the Teva should be built, given the understandings of the need for three levels and a window from the torah story of Noach.

The children then learned about making a model. They had to work through this idea of first learning that a model was not just a pretty lady in beautiful clothes walking down a runway, then understanding that a flat clay creation of what they thought the Teva should look like was not a model. A model, as they learned, is a three dimensional miniature representation of the final structure. Once they saw a three dimensional Teva replica they began to understand and build sides, bases and some built roofs or levels in their Tevas.

Natan shows his Teva model.

Leah and her Teva model, and Mae building her Teva model.

The children are working hard because, thanks to the generous donation by Ronan’s Dad, Mike Hensdell, we will be building a replica (much smaller than Noach’s original) Teva. The children will be making the plans for the Teva and then we will begin construction (hopefully next week). The Teva will be a permanent play structure in the outdoor learning space.